From Launch to Growth: The Business of Building a Law Firm

Transcript

Matt Margolis 00:00

Being top of mind in a sea of lawyers is a powerful, powerful tool.

Kyle Robisch 00:06

Helpful doesn’t just mean providing legal services, it means providing information, providing connection, being somebody that somebody actually wants to talk to on a daily basis.

Matt Margolis 00:15

When I have conversations with folks, I look at it from a very human perspective.

Alex Su 00:19

We talk about LinkedIn, I do think there are a lot of lawyers out there who feel like it’s a place where you’ve got to be very formal, but when you start being more casual and essentially becoming more of a human, that leads to all sorts of great business development things, because people see you as a person and not as a blank corporate suit.

Candice Reed 00:39

This is Leveraging Latitude: Cultivating a Full Life in the Law. Please, join us on our journey as we discover how to leverage the hard work of becoming a lawyer to achieving success and leading a rich and fulfilling life in the law.

Alex Su 00:53

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Leveraging Latitude. Today’s a really fun episode, because we’re going to be talking about starting and scaling a law firm, but we also have a guest co-host. As you all know, Tim Haley and Candice Reed are typically one of the other co-hosts on the show, but today, we’ve got a new guest co-host, my colleague and Latitude partner, Kyle Robisch. Kyle joined Latitude a little while back and he’s the partner in charge of our Tampa operations. Kyle, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself before we get into today’s conversation?

Kyle Robisch 01:30

Yeah, I’m excited to be here. “Here” being both Latitude and on the podcast. Kyle Robisch, I’m a partner at Latitude Tampa Bay. Before that, I was a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings here in Tampa, an associate at Venable up in DC for four years, and I started my career as a federal law clerk. Now I get to work with legal departments and law firms across Tampa, across Florida, across the country to plug in really awesome contract and flexible attorneys into their legal departments and law firms. It’s been a heck of a ride over the past year.

Alex Su 02:07

It’s amazing. What’s really exciting is that the three of us, and we haven’t introduced our guest yet, the three of us here all met and got to know each other, I think, through LinkedIn. I’m going to just jump right ahead. Our guest today is Matthew Margolis, @itsmattslaw. You all may recognize him from social media. Matt’s done it all, really. He’s been a law firm attorney, he’s gone in-house, he’s worked in legal tech, and now he’s running his own firm. I’ve gotten to know Matt over the years as I know Kyle has as well. Matt, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Matt Margolis 02:44

Thanks, man. It’s great to be on this. Yeah, I’m Matt, I run a firm in South Florida called Margolis PLLC. My law partner is my wife, Karina. Fantastic attorney as well. I’m excited to be on the pod, it’s going to be a lot of fun to talk through building a law firm and also just joking around with you guys. This is always a fun time for me.

Alex Su 03:03

Yeah, no, I think it’s so much fun. It’s so cool to blend your friends and work. I’m excited to also talk about all things small firms, business development, running a practice, but I love the story of how you, Matt, worked with Kyle in the past before Kyle joined Latitude. I don’t know if Kyle or Matt, one of you want to share the story of how you all know each other.

Matt Margolis 03:27

Can I do it? This is fun.

Kyle Robisch 03:29

I’m going to regret this. I know I’m going to regret letting him tell the story.

Matt Margolis 03:32

I met Kyle through LinkedIn and I was in-house at a private equity group down in Miami, and Kyle is just super nice guy, providing good content on the internet, always explaining to me what his practice is, what his firm does. His firm had a very well-known senior living practice, and that was an aspect of our portfolio that we were really going after and acquiring. Through one way or another, Kyle ended up our outside counsel and his firm ended up our outside counsel, which is super weird, by the way, just candidly, because… Not in the sense of… He’s a really great attorney, the firm was fantastic, awesome service, but it’s weird, because we’re friends. I don’t know about you guys, but if you ever order around your friends, it’s the weirdest thing on the planet. Kyle was the outside attorney, the private practice attorney, I was in-house, and then maybe… I don’t know, what? Two, three years later, it flipped almost, where Kyle is internal at a company and then I’m private practice, which is also equally weird. Yeah, that’s how we work together.

Alex Su 04:46

I think it’s such an interesting path to business development, how you get to know a client from the outside counsel’s perspective. This ties into the first question I have for you, Matt. Everyone who goes solo, they want to know, “Where am I going to find clients?” It’s just such an important part of the practice, so how have you been able to do that ever since you launched your practice?

Matt Margolis 05:04

Yeah, that’s the number one question I get, but biz dev is the hardest part about going solo. You can always find someone to do the work, I know people will fight me on that, but actually finding the work is hard. For me, I was fortunate enough to start in November during the holidays, which I’m being facetious, that was frightening. No one has budget. If you’re an in-house attorney, you’re laughing at me hearing that statement. No one has budget, things were crazy, so what I ended up doing very quickly was finding local firms or firms that had practice areas that were complementary to mine and trying to either have referral relationships or be of counsel to fill a gap. There’s a couple of firms I ended up working with. There’s one in particular, it’s a franchise firm, and they do a lot of great work and they were like, “Hey, well what about privacy? Do you do privacy?”
“Yes.”

“Employment?”

“Yes.”

“Corporate?”

“Yes.” I got to fill a hole, not necessarily a real hole, but I got to help them in certain aspects of their practice to allow them to expand their services. I did that and there’s a number of applicable bar rules to apply to it, so if you’re listening to this, please consult your bar rules, but that was a way of gaining work quickly and get myself moving. Outside of that, there’s these fractional services, like Latitude’s an example, that provide work to attorneys, and that’s another way of finding work. Now, outside of all those things, I am so chronically online, it is frightening.

Alex Su 06:39

Chronically online?

Matt Margolis 06:40

Yeah, being online was very helpful. Marketing my services online, not necessarily advertisements, but just making myself known to the general public is very helpful, because being top of mind in a sea of lawyers is a powerful, powerful tool, so I ended up just being so known as a corporate attorney, as a weird law attorney, as someone who can just like, “If I don’t know how to do it, Matt will figure it out,” and that definitely, definitely led to some great client development.

Alex Su 07:14

Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s interesting, because you went from in-house to legal tech to starting your practice. Kyle, I know you were at a firm before and you had a lot of successful business development approaches. I’m curious, was your perspective similar to Matt’s, like being online helped or were there other ways that you drove business?

Kyle Robisch 07:36

Yeah, mine was a grab back. I definitely got some purchase online. I mean, look, Matt and I met… He started the most story convenient point, right? What he didn’t tell you is I was one of the three people liking his original videos it in 2020, because I was an associate toiling away, and I was like, “This stuff’s really funny.” Nobody else thought it was funny back then.

Matt Margolis 08:00

It’s a nice jab. It’s a nice little jab you just threw there. I respect that. We’re friends. It’s like, “Yeah.”

Kyle Robisch 08:10

You can call that it wasn’t business development, it was getting a relationship with somebody who, at that point, we were both associates, at theoretically competing law firms, but the life of the law is long and it has twists and turns, and so Matt became a client and then now we’ve flipped. My point being, yeah, you can trace that to being active online. I did a very similar thing out in the real world, if you will, in Tampa, in D.C., and across the country – just showing up places, meeting people, trying to be helpful, trying to be top of mind, and then when there was an opportunity to help them, whether it was through Bradley, my firm, or me individually helping them. Those things all eventually pay dividends, but I think that’s what it boils down to, being patient, planting seeds, and being helpful however you can. Helpful doesn’t just mean providing legal services, it means providing information, providing connections, being somebody that somebody actually wants to talk to on a daily basis. Those kinds of things.

Alex Su 09:11

Yeah.

Matt Margolis 09:12

Double-click on the being helpful. That happened recently where, whenever I don’t get a deal or a matter… I make it clear too, I’m like, “Okay, that’s fine. It’s not a big deal. If you want me to be helpful anyways, if you want to call me up and be a sounding board as it relates to certain aspects of whatever you’re doing, I’m happy to.” Not only do I enjoy talking to people and enjoy talking about the law. To Kyle’s point, I know being helpful. Maybe one day you’ll come back, maybe one day you’ll tell someone, but that’s definitely a very important, important, important tip, is try to make yourself as helpful as possible to folks.

Alex Su 09:46

Do you think, Matt, that it was easy for you to be helpful because you sat in the shoes of your potential clients, you were in-house? What were some of the lessons you learned from in-house that help you now as you generate new clients?

Matt Margolis 09:59

Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m still in-house, right? Because of the fractional practice. I would say the lessons are… God, this is so cliche to say this out loud. Being human, but I mean that in the context of a more professional setting, not being human as just, again, in normal conversations. What I mean by that is, when I have conversations with folks, I look at it from a very human perspective and I talk to people in a very human perspective. When we have conversations, I want to make sure… Because I hate also being in a very awkward, rigid environment. Some people like to be very professional, that’s just not my bag, but I’ll be in a call with someone and it’s just like I’m talking to a business person when I’m internal. It is a very friendly, we’ve known each other for years. There’s not really a true intro, and that’s how I present legal advice. That’s how I present my personal business advice. That’s how they get these conversations going. That was one thing I learned being in-house that was tremendously helpful, and it’s helpful for business development, because when I talk to prospective clients, they’re like, “We’re friends. We’re already friends. I’ve known you for 15 minutes, we’re already friends,” because it’s how I talk to people. That’s how I want these relationships to be, and being very normal, personal, very relationship-driven with my revenue-generating departments. I apply that to everything now.

Alex Su 11:26

Yeah, I think being human is such a big part of it that, conceptually, it’s like, “Yeah, people say it, but what does it mean?” I think that social media really enables it. I mean, the story that you all shared that Kyle liking one of Matt’s first videos, Matt putting up that post. When we talk about LinkedIn, I do think there are a lot of lawyers out there who feel like it’s a place where you’ve got to be very formal, but when you start being more casual and essentially becoming more of a human, that leads to all sorts of great business development things, because people see you as a person and not as a blank corporate suit, right?

Matt Margolis 12:05

Kyle, let’s say, when you talk to me, when you were outside counsel, you were like… It was the same perspective. You would talk to me, you’d be like, “look, I don’t like this,” or not just put words in your mouth, but you would speak very conversational to me, and I respected that and I appreciated that. “Look, between us, I don’t like this. I don’t know if I would do this thing,” or, “Yeah, I like this. That’s a good idea, I think it makes sense. Think about this.” You’re right, you talk like that on social media and people, it resonates the same way, the same exact way.

Kyle Robisch 12:32

I think it’s the only… To Matt’s point and Alex’s original point, I think it’s the only way to be really effective on social media. Otherwise, there’s just noise. There’s lots of noise. People talking about their awards, people sharing their law firm or corporate press releases, people just talking in this sort of voice. When you actually add personality and an original thought, it cuts through that, and that’s where you can actually get some purchase and start making real connections with people, but if you’re just going to be a bot and act like a bot, you’re going to be seen as a bot.

Kyle Robisch 13:09

For me, that was an interesting place that Bradley, to Matt’s point, I was an associate and then a partner at an 150-year old Am Law 200 law firm headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, right? Old school. I mean, the firm is innovative. They do some really cool things as Matt saw, but my point is I walked a line of being one of the early adopters on social media at the law firm, particularly where I was in my career. To the firm’s credit, they encouraged it. They were fantastic about it, they never discouraged me and they gave me… Even platforms within the firm who talk about the things I was doing, but the thing I always went back to is don’t just post your Super Lawyers award, post the meme. Yeah, you have to get the voice right or post a joke or engage on a personal level with something. I love sharing about my family, because that’s really important to me. I’ve got a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old. Do a lot of that, and those things resonate, because guess who else has families? Everybody else. That’s how I think you make a real connection, but I had to do it in a way that walked in two worlds. I was fortunate to have a place that let me do that, and certainly, of course, Latitude, the same way. But I think I’m a living example of, if I can do that at the place I was coming from, I think anybody can do it.

Matt Margolis 14:29

If we can go back a second, because we didn’t address this. You did a voice that was very similar to the parents from The Peanuts.

Kyle Robisch 14:36

Yes, that’s what it was. It was meant to be like the classroom like…

Matt Margolis 14:42

That was really well done. I like that.

Kyle Robisch 14:44

It’s a lot of practice at home.

Alex Su 14:47

Before we started recording, Kyle was practicing.

Matt Margolis 14:50

Looking in the mirror and, “I got it, nailed it. We got this.” It was really good. I agree with that, I agree with everything you’re saying. It really is. Outside the realm, I always feel like we always talk about LinkedIn, because it’s a professional setting, but in all platforms. It turns out, Instagram, I get more business actually from Instagram than LinkedIn now. I think because I can do more of both, I can give information. I feel like it’s almost becoming a better platform than LinkedIn in the context of showing both sides and turning the line, like you’re saying, Kyle. I can be personal joke, show family, and then students do both. I don’t know if it’s maybe because Instagram… With LinkedIn, I think there’s probably this perception it’s more professional, and Instagram, you maybe let your guard down a little bit more, because it’s a social media platform. It’s for millennials and a little bit older. This is all I know.

Alex Su 15:46

I think Instagram is more personal, so it’s far more disarming. LinkedIn works really well, but Instagram, there’s another element to it that makes it more real, which I think what we were saying, is that gets to the point. If you act human, it’s more real, it can be effective. I think the most important point that I want to hammer home for the listeners is that Matt’s been very successful at generating lots of clients through these social channels, and I think that you’re probably too modest to say that, Matt, but I think it’s important to highlight it’s not just us talking about it in theory, it’s produced actual results. That leads me to a question about your practice nowadays, which is most people are worried about getting clients, you’ve been able to get a healthy steady flow of lots of demand, but how do you scale that? Do you just work more hours? How did you think through that part of your process once you started getting tons of work through the door?

Matt Margolis 16:39

This is the hardest question for any — not even just law firms, for you guys too, — for any business owner or management-level position, “How do we scale?” It’s hard. It’s really hard and, everyone listening, it’s really hard and I am still learning. One day, I’ll listen back to this and be like, “Idiot, you didn’t know what you’re talking about,” which is always my favorite thing, to listen to podcasts and say that, but I’m trying to figure it out. I’ll say this to people listening, temporary, fractional, plug to Latitude, talent is helpful, is very helpful, because twofold. If you’re bringing in a lot of business, especially in the practice that I’m in, which is much more of a generalist practice, I’m not going to be able to do everything. In the sense of, yes, I know it, but at any given point, I may need some assistance like, “Hey, you handle that employment agreement, I’m going to go handle this commercial contract.” Things of that nature.

Matt Margolis 17:37

It’s really great for the overflow-related work. Even getting specialists. If I need a specialist on an ongoing basis, I know I always will have tax help. I’m always going to need tax assistance. Utilizing a service like that gives me those resources in an ongoing basis that not only is affordable for the practice, but is reliable and it’s consistent. I’ll say that, for scaling especially… By the way, I see this with companies too. You have this contingent workforce, temporary workforce. Most companies have departments or mechanisms for it. I think a lot of law firms, the ones that utilize it really well, you’ll never know, because it’s a secret sauce. The ones that don’t utilize it may look down upon it until they realize how much of a game-changer it is. Yeah, so that’s one aspect of it.

Matt Margolis 18:34

The other aspect of scaling is processes, which we’re working on ourselves. You can always improve on that. Having the right operations in place, having a mechanism as small as, how does the engagement letter go out and what happens next? To long term — who is finding and responding to RFPs issued by large companies? Things like that is the other aspect of scaling that we’re figuring out, but those are the two ways I’ve found that have allowed my practice to grow with the deluge of both really cool and cool, but weird. I keep saying weird, I think it’s what you should call the episode, that, “Weird law topics I get.”

Kyle Robisch 19:19

I want to jump into to add something that I’ve found really cool, but not weird. This is going to work out for you, Matt. Hold on, let me finish.

Matt Margolis 19:27

Go on.

Kyle Robisch 19:30

The clients Matt has been getting, so Matt has been getting… I get to see them, right? Because a lot of times, he’s asking for Latitude support for a particular deal or client, whatever it might be, but also Matt’s just a friend. We talk about the stuff we each have going. Some of the clients that Matt’s getting are like marquee clients, publicly-traded companies, international companies, billion with a B dollar companies. That’s not just to make Matt feel great, it’s to point out what he’s done, is one, cool, not weird, but two, major companies asking for major support. I think that’s what everyone wants when they’re thinking about building their own practice, but everyone thinks it’s unattainable. I think Matt, you’re living proof that it’s not. It takes some creativity and gumption, and courage to do it, but it’s doable. It’s a 100% doable.

Matt Margolis 20:24

Agreed, agreed. Thanks, by the way, that was nice. I only ask you guys this outside of more a professional setting. It is so hard for me to accept compliments. I don’t know if it’s a lawyer thing or that’s just…

Kyle Robisch 20:39

I can’t do it. I think I’m physically incapable.

Matt Margolis 20:42

I feel weird. Alex, are you good with compliments?

Alex Su 20:44

I’m not sure I’ve ever received one.

Matt Margolis 20:49

That was good, that was good.

Alex Su 20:52

I can’t wait until I get my first one, guys.

Matt Margolis 20:54

I called you the best podcast host around, you stop, early on in the episode.

Alex Su 20:59

Well, false humility is a big approach of mine, so you can borrow that. No, I think what Kyle said is absolutely true, and I’ll double down on that. Maybe we should have led off with your roster, but yes, these are publicly-traded companies, international companies. This is also why we are such big believers in social media, even though there is another group of people who probably believe that social media is not the right place to do business development for lawyers and law firms. But to go back to what you were saying earlier, I think when you start a practice, the most important thing is, can you get those clients? If you can solve for that, it does seem like everything else is fixable. Like you say, Matt, through processes or people or, quick plug alert, Latitude attorneys, there’s so many ways to solve when you have a huge amount of workload. Now, if you have no work, that’s when you’re in trouble. It seems like focusing on what matters when you launch a firm, which is client acquisition, seems to be the most important part.

Matt Margolis 22:10

Yeah. Probably, Kyle, you’ll probably remember this from private practice, you can find attorneys to do the work. It’s bringing in the work. You can find people to do the work and the business generation is so huge. When you just start a firm, that’s all you can think about. Honestly, it becomes a problem, because if you don’t start bringing in that work, you make bad decisions, you make really bad decisions. You have the work coming in, you can make good decisions, you make strategic decisions, “I don’t want that work. I want to do that work long-term.” I can start marketing for other work, because I can make representations that I’ve done other kinds of work. I think you see so often that people are like, “I don’t want to go solo, I don’t want to start a firm, because I want to make sure that I have honed my craft.” Then you end up with a 30-year attorney or 25-year attorney that has no book of business. Is maybe exceptional at what they do, but they don’t have business generated, they have no way of generating business. They were on the internet or going to conferences or doing things to generate the business, and they can’t make those good decisions. They can’t, because they don’t have the business to allow them to make those decisions. I find that so often. I know that kills an ego for a lawyer, but it’s true. People can do the work, it’s bringing in the work that really matters.

Kyle Robisch 23:23

To that point too, taking a little bit of a different direction. The other cool thing I’ve seen about Latitude, and it’s not something I’ve thought about before I took this job, but there’s a good amount of… Not even just new practitioners, but practitioners who’ve been around for a long time who use us to supplement their work. Maybe they have 1,000 hours a year of their sweet spot work at their sweet spot rate, but I wouldn’t mind being a little busier, especially with some really sophisticated marquee clients maybe that they haven’t gotten yet or they don’t want to go get for whatever reason. Then we can get them plugged in on our clients looking for really, really high-quality lawyers onto those projects. It helps feed them workflow and sometimes they turn around and use us for their own stuff. My point being, today, in 2025, there’s way more ways than ever to get clients, get work, and get work done.

Matt Margolis 24:19

I agree with that. I was speaking about this. I did some posts on the internet off a bunch of people, and it’s like, “If you were RIFed, if there’s a reduction of force and you’re an in-house attorney, you were RIFed, why not start a practice? Give it a shot, try it out. What do you have to lose at this point?” Especially because the market… I don’t know if the market’s necessarily super favorable for folks applying for in-house jobs, and I got a comment similar and it was like, “Hey, well, some people just want to work for law firms,” and I’m like, “That makes sense.” Law firms are clients too, law firms are clients too. These folks that are really good at what they’re doing that could bring law… Appellate attorneys are the perfect example of that. Appellate attorneys are fantastic at their craft, and their clients are the client, sure, but really, they’re getting the work from the trial attorneys. It’s exactly what you’re describing. Folks can get work from these services from Latitude and do the work, great practitioners, but they also have to develop those relationships and that business and develop those soft skills like we talked about, because they’re going to be interviewing with these law firms or these clients to get the work, but I agree with you, I agree with you. There’s other ways to get it, but I view that just the same way as client acquisition, is getting hooked up with these groups. Again, Latitude is a great example to bring in clients like law firms and these enterprise clients, like these big companies.

Alex Su 25:45

I do think a lot of people who start off a firm or are thinking about it, I think yes, they worry about how they’re going to get clients, but they’re also worried about a problem they don’t quite have yet, which is, “If I get a great big client, like one of these public companies, how am I going to service them?”

Matt Margolis 26:01

Yep.

Alex Su 26:02

What my hope with today’s podcast is, and some of the marketing material we put out, is there’s a lot of options. You don’t necessarily have to hire a full-time employee, because we know that costs a lot. If they’re not productive, it could damage your profits, and so what we’ve found at Latitude is we work with lots of small firms who have an excess amount of demand or work from clients, and we provide them an expert. Somebody who’s experienced, an experienced attorney in a specific area, and they can plug them in. Ongoing, fractionally, or full-time if needed, but there are a lot of ways to service the work. Almost as a small firm owner, I would say, worry more about the client acquisition, because servicing it, there are so many options these days. One of which certainly is Latitude.

Matt Margolis 26:59

Agreed, agreed, agreed, agreed. I see that a lot with in-house departments too. They will bring in fractional support like that and they’ll learn from those individuals, because that’s the beauty… I think that’s a secret sauce thing. Like Latitude, you’ll grab someone… Let’s use tax, tax is a good example. I don’t know why someone’s hiring a tax attorney internally, almost scares me a little bit, I don’t know what’s going on, but let’s say they need a tax attorney. They bring in a tax attorney that’s a subject matter expert, that particular tax attorney on the platform has… You’re right, Kyle’s a good example. They just supplement their practice and it makes it fully well-rounded, because the work is coming in steadily. They don’t have to really do much as it relates to client acquisition. Obviously, they need to sell themselves to the client long-term. I’ve seen this, the GC, DGC, whoever’s utilizing that person, will learn from the tax attorney and will pick… Not to say they’ll become a tax attorney, but they’ll pick up that knowledge, they’ll be able to soak up that knowledge. I’ve seen that, actually, with privacy is probably the greatest example, is where you’ll get a privacy attorney and utilize that privacy attorney to learn privacy yourself. I feel like it’s a secret sauce of it too, where it’s like, “I do want to continue. I’m going to service the work, I want to continue the service to work,” and you hire, fractionally, this expert who will also help you learn how to properly service the work as well.

Kyle Robisch 28:19

Yeah. Actually, it’s funny you say that, Matt. Last week, I was working with two different clients in that capacity, but they’re different in the sense that one was a law firm person breaking off, doing their own thing and wanted to learn how to do commercial contracts. I’ve done a lot of other things in her career.

Matt Margolis 28:37

That’s a good example.

Kyle Robisch 28:38

It was like, “Can I basically hire a very experienced commercial contracts attorney through Latitude, and they’ll walk me through it? Because I’m bringing in the clients, I just need to learn how to do the work.” Six months, nine months, twelve months later, they can do commercial contracts. The other was a new GC at a large privately-held company who was new to the GCC. It was like, “I would love to have 10 hours a week of overflow help, but also just GC counseling from an experienced general counsel in my space.”

Matt Margolis 29:06

That’s cool, like a mentor.

Kyle Robisch 29:06

We had somebody that now has been working with that attorney to learn not… To get confidence, right? Confidence and also overflow work, but it’s a similar concept. My point is you can also do it on the in-house side, it’s worked really well.

Matt Margolis 29:22

Yeah, I like that. I didn’t think about the mentor, I’ve never heard of that use case, but that’s interesting. It’s almost like you’re hiring them in the context of a… Yeah, it’s almost like a consultant, again, mentor.

Kyle Robisch 29:33

Yeah. You know, Matt. GCC, it’s lonely and it’s hard, or can be lonely, it can be very difficult, and the buck stops with you. Being a law firm partner can be scary at times, so it’s nice to be able to have someone else who’s been in that seat who you can lean on as needed to work through decisions and processes, work through blind spots, and then help you get some of the stuff done day to day.

Matt Margolis 29:58

That’s cool. I didn’t think about that as well, but I will say I get hired all the time in that setting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m hired from my legal acumen and to help do the work, but sometimes I get hired, because I’ve got a fantastic GEC. This is where the fractional deputy stuff comes in, where GC will hire me and he’s like, or she’s like, “Hey, I just need you as a sounding board. I need you to come in, I understand you’ve been here too, and we’re both in a similar setting. I want to do X, Y, and Z. Help me get to X, Y, and Z, but also, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it.” Yeah, it’s quite a lonely position, the solo, but that’s an interesting point, Kyle, I appreciate that, because I didn’t think about that way, of using fractional talent.

Alex Su 30:39

We’ve been going for a little while now, and I think… We don’t want to take up too much of your time, Matt, but maybe the last question I have for you is, if you could go back to back when you first started, before you launched, what advice would you give yourself in the… Yeah, going solo. In the context of a lot of people who are thinking… I think you mentioned you posted about people who are RIFed, they should consider it. I bet they’ve got a lot of worries, concerns, and doubts. What advice would you give to them and yourself back in the day?

Matt Margolis 31:12

No, I think real advice, looking back, is two things. I’ve preached this online now, it’s the operations piece. While you’re building, you’re going to be frantic. I don’t care how level-headed and cool-minded you are, you are going to be frantic, because you are a entrepreneur, whether you realize it or not, starting your business from the ground up, especially if you’re an in-house attorney where you probably don’t have a book of business. Maybe you got to keep the company, because they still need you in a partial fractional capacity. Operations is key, so I would say make sure you understand and you’re building the bones, because what’s going to happen is, if you do succeed and you really start bringing the clients and you’re knocking out of the park, you’re going to be stress test multiple times. That stress test is also going to stress you out personally and you’ll see things crack. Make sure you’re building things correctly. You can make mistakes, you’re going to make mistakes, but at least putting an emphasis on that is important. Build the bones, test the bones, break the bones, but build them back up, because it’s going to matter if you could really grow.

Matt Margolis 32:27

Second thing is leverage the community like you’ve never leveraged before. Alex, you’ve said this to me 100 times in the past. Lawyers are so weird when it comes to selling things, right? I don’t feel like we want to be overt about selling. Now, there are bar rules in place, and I’m not saying to violate any ethical obligations or rules you may have. I’m saying don’t be afraid to ask your friends and say, “Hey, I need some help. Let me know if you have overflow work.” Going to Kyle is a good example. “Hey, Kyle, listen. If you have any engagements that are coming up, if there is clients that you have that need contract overflow support, I just started my firm, I’d love that help. You know I’m a good attorney,” but asking for it. I’ve talked to so many attorneys that are so afraid to just go out and say, “I’m starting this firm, I’m doing this thing. Call me.” If we are friends, if I know you, going into your friends and family and asking… Going to colleagues, opposing counsels that you ended up becoming friendly with, whoever, and trying to sell yourself, that’s important. Those are the two things. At least on that same point, you end up being proud. You’re like, “I’m going to do this this way,” and there’s no pride in starting a business.

Alex Su 33:37

Well said, well said. We’re about to wrap up, but before we do, I wanted to give you a chance to share all your socials in case for those few listeners who’ve been living under a rock who have not seen your Insta or your LinkedIn.

Matt Margolis 33:51

Sure.

Alex Su 33:51

How can listeners find you, Matt?

Matt Margolis 33:54

@itsmattslaw on every social platform. Unless it’s a social platform I’ve never heard of, then it’s not me. Instagram, LinkedIn. Obviously, my name is on LinkedIn. TikTok, Twitter, X, whatever it’s called, Threads, BlueSky, the calculator app on your phone.

Alex Su 34:12

All right, well, hey, thanks for spending the time with us today on Leveraging Latitude. We wish you the best of luck and we really enjoy watching your… I personally enjoy watching your journey. I can’t believe the three of us all work together in some sense, given that I basically met both of you online, but now we’ve all hung out in person. Yeah, thanks for sharing your insights and your experiences.

Matt Margolis 34:37

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.

Alex Su 34:38

All right. On that note, everyone, we will see you all in the next episode. Thanks, again, Matt, and Kyle, for guest hosting.

Matt Margolis 34:46

Thanks, guys.

Kyle Robisch 34:47

Thanks, everyone.

Tim Haley 34:48

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